Is it acceptable to give away the Steam key and play the DRM-free copy?
It's a thoughtful thing for having both Steam and DRM-Free versions of the same game. What happens when internet goes down? What happens when you have to travel and can't use Steam for a while? I applaud Humble for doing this, because there are times when you don't want certain games to be on your Steam account or gifted a game to a friend, you will always have a backup DRM-Free copy of the game ready to play (if possible and if it is not only restricted to steam).
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't really play the DRM-Free copy. I want all my games in one place to make my life easier. That's why I hate that I need to have an account on Uplay + an account on Origin... it sucks! And having to download games outside Steam + remembering where to download it from... Not my kind of thing. I only use Steam, so I only buy a bundle when they provide a Steam key.
Comment has been collapsed.
Reading through all this just makes me think one thing, pretty soon we're going to see warnings when we start up games:
"Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this game, without the express written consent of Humble Bundle is prohibited."
Just makes me think of this and here is one with them giving the consent for the baseball fans out there.
Comment has been collapsed.
when you buy something you make a contract. if you're not sure about the contents of your contract you should ask your business partner and not ask random people on the internet what the intention of the contract may or may not be.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's kind of OK, what wouldn't be cool is passing the DRM-free copy to X number of people, in the end it's like if they give let's say a Steam key and Origin key, the thing is that DRM-free should be for personal use, other than that it's abuse.
Well that's my opinion on the matter at least! Other would deem DRM free copies just for backup in case Valve goes kaput.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't do it, but I think it's fine to give away the steam key and keep the drm-free copy. I instead sometimes share the drm-free copy with some real life friend, but it doesn't happen much since most of my friends don't have a decent pc or don't care for non-AAA games.
P.S.: I'm not level 4 but why did you blacklist me? T.T
Comment has been collapsed.
I kind of have to say no, because I would never do it. It's more of a question of ethics rather than a black and white yes or no answer.
Like I always tell my kids/grandkids -- "If you have to ask if it's wrong, you probably shouldn't be doing it." ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
You might not know if it's wrong or right, because ethics and morals are things we learn from our environment, what is and what is not acceptable. Example: Is it wrong to feed squirrels? There are two sides to this story, either, yes, it's wrong, because you'll train the squirrel to become more dependent upon humans for food, or there are so many humans feeding the squirrels, how does it matter anymore? They already are. So if you don't feed them, are you helping to hurt them? I think the DRM question is one where we have to determine how it works. Because as one user stated, if you purchase in a bundle, and create a gift link, the DRM version is still available. Is this an oversight? Or done on purpose?
Just something that popped into my mind after reading this. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I've just found that 9 times out of 10, when you feel the need to ask if something is "wrong" and if you should do it, you've already answered the question for yourself, and you're just looking for justification and approval from others.
And that's where you should probably err on the side of caution, in my opinion. ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting debate that i was wondering too. I have no idea how this kind of thing(licences) works so it never cross my mind about this ethical issue. I had a telltale game bought from humble store and gave away the steam key here keeping the drm version. The only worry i have was that the 2 code will be linked and if I activate the drm-free version, the steam version will be locked so I had so far not activated the drm version yet.
In my personal opinion, I think it is alright to use it since i believed not every one will buy the product so if i give it away, the other person can play it and be happy, I can use the drm-free version play it and be happy. If I do not give it away, chances of the person buying the game is very low.( If not why do we have such a huge wishlist except those rich people who can afford all the games) In other sense, giving the steam copy away, it can help promote the game/publisher and in some case lure people to make future payment(new game/dlc). One of the example for me is that I won a copy of deponia on steam companion, which enticed me very much to buy the humble bundle that came with chaos and goodbye deponia because I like the 1st game very much. People may feel that it is taking advantage of the system, but for those using drm-free version will be losing out too in terms of accessibility, steam cards, steam achievements and steam prestige(having the game in your steam library).
Of course we can argue that developers lose more that us but why do publishers do discounts of giveaways in the first place? Because there is certain limit of people that will be buying their game. Most publishers will reduce price/discount after a certain period of time to gain more revenue from more people and having extra people playing without paying is I believed acceptable if they are willing to give 75% discount on a game. Some people may not be interested even at a lower price so in a way having more people playing the game may not be a bad thing for them.
Lets not forget there is the steam family sharing library and i believe it can also be abuse.( Maybe create new account buy new game, share with everyone you know, take turn to play = 10 person play same game on 1 licence. Not sure if it will work though)
The only issue I believe here in SG is I earn CV by giving it away and yet I get to play the game.(people are gonna flame me for it)
Overall, this issue is in a grey area and is pretty subjective unless it is strictly prohibited by the relevant publisher/sellers/anyone. So if you think it is right, do it, if not, dont. For now, I doubt anyone will know who is doing it or not.
TLDR
Personally, it is acceptable.
Comment has been collapsed.
You need to add a "Massa, is we sick?" option to the poll, to make people's psychological identification more explicit.
Comment has been collapsed.
Will the world end? No. Is it morally correct? No.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think you missed an earlier post in this thread discussing this, but it's a little different:
via Sooth:
1: Steam is a bonus- for example, you can buy a greenlight game, then later get an extra Steam key.
In a bundle, you can pay 1 cent and get DRM-Free, but pay 99 cents more to get Steam keys.2: Steam is singular use, DRM-Free is not.
3: DRM-Free is presented on your account for personal download, with no options for sharing (and explicit mention in the rules that it shouldn't be shared).
In all the ways that matter, it is entirely different in presentation and outcome- ergo, the principle is NOT the same.
Sharing the DRM-Free file or link to download is explicitly forbidden, and is a particularly stark violation of license if you use the DRM-file and share it with someone else or multiple people at the same time. The Steam key is in a much more ambiguous grey area which HB and individual developers/publishers have been inconsistent in their stance. It is not 100% clear whether or not the inclusion of it means the inclusion of a separate license from the DRM-free file.
Comment has been collapsed.
It amounts to the same thing, though. You're purchasing the game once and giving it to two different people. One person is getting the DRM free copy, one person is getting Steam. I don't see how the split could be obviously blatantly wrong one way and not be obviously blatantly wrong the other way.
Case 1: I buy the bundle, give the DRM free installers to a friend, and keep the steam keys for myself.
Case 2: My friend buys the bundle, keeps the DRM free installers for himself, and sends me the steam keys.
The only difference is that in Case 1, he has to go through me to get a replacement copy. Otherwise, the same one purchase is being used in the exact same way.
Comment has been collapsed.
The major factor that makes it different is this:
- DRM-Free is presented on your account for personal download, with no options for sharing (and explicit mention in the rules that it shouldn't be shared).
Apart from that, if you truly only give the DRM-free file or link to ONLY one other person and you never download or touch the file yourself, then the license issue would be similar to the case in giving away the Steam key and keeping the DRM-free file for yourself (were it not for the above-mentioned EXPLICIT stipulation in their rules that you are NOT to share the DRM-free file or link with anyone).
Comment has been collapsed.
Criminy...not this discussion again :-( There was a guy on GOG that, before HiB changed their policy on gifting/trading Steam keys from bundles, used to chastise or rather excoriate anyone brazen enough to gift those keys in giveaways... GAH, thank-god HiB changed their policy to allow purchasers to gift keys from bundles that the purchaser didn't want. I did a happy dance that day just cause I was so sick of his tirades on "right and wrong" and "you evil person you" commentary.
Listen, as an adult, I can make up my own mind about what is right and what is wrong. I usually redeem keys on Steam that I really want to play regardless of having a DRM-free copy. DRM-free isn't my, "I'm gonna die on this hill and will never play a game unless it's offered as drm-free!". I'm not one of those people that refuse to buy a bundle that contains a game I eventually :-p want to play because HiB didn't include a drm-free copy... so yeah, if some people gift/trade the Steam key and keep the drm-free copy for themselves (BTW, HiB doesn't have an option for doing this with a single game from a bundle...), then yeah, it's gonna happen. When HiB can code something that allows a gift to pull the drm-free copy from a person's HiB library when gifting the Steam code, I'll happily gift both - I'm gifting something I don't want to play! :-p But if people do it, it's not my place to chastise them cause I'm not their mother :-p
Comment has been collapsed.
This is definitely a grey area and I think it depends on each individual developer/publisher's intent. There is no explicit statement or ruling on this in Humble's TOS, and internally they are not unified on a stance as support has given answers with varying degrees of ambiguity. It is unclear whether or not each distribution method is given a separate license or not, and individual developers/publishers may have different opinions on whether it is one or two licenses.
My personal take on this as a hobbyist developer and someone who is a strong advocate of DRM-free gaming: if I were to publish a game for sale at Humble Bundle or using their widget, I would create separate sales entries for a DRM-free version OR a Steam key version, and the consumer could choose whichever one they prefer. This makes it very clear that each purchase includes a single license to that particular delivery method of the game.
Comment has been collapsed.
I would lean towards it being an abuse of the license. Then again, if I'm going through my huge DRM free library of all the bundles that I've bought on Humble's account, there's no way I'm going to remember what I activated and what I've given away. So there's that. xD
Comment has been collapsed.
This scenario brings two of my beliefs into conflict.
One major problem is that, sometimes, companies include rules within their contract which are illegal and therefore non-binding. P
In the case of HB Steam keys and DRM-free versions, Steam keys are locked to the account which redeems them, so that is a gray area as you are fully transferring ownership. Redistributing DRM-free versions of games, on the other hand, is clearly immoral as it amounts to software piracy.
Comment has been collapsed.
Strange enough, not even pirates like it. There are GOG versions of games on torrent sites, but they are not too popular. Since DRM-free games are usually offered at a fair price, most people, even the poorer ones, feel the need to actually buy them. Even expensive ones like Pillars of Eternity and Witchers on GOG are bought rather than using a downloaded DRM-free installer.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's an interesting bit of information. I suppose the loyalty which GOG inspires in its customers has some influence on that.
Comment has been collapsed.
Could be, but in general I don't see people sharing DRM-free installers, not just from GOG but from HB or Groupees either. GOG is the biggest naturally, where the most extreme reaction I ever saw was on a warez forum: someone posted a few links to some GOG installers and an admin came and asked the poster to remove them and later locked the topic.
Piracy, in large, is usually aimed at cracking the shell of protection. There is a "free gamez" aspect to it, especially in certain regions (it is not really a secret that in Russia over 90% and in China over 97% of software, especially games and Windows/MS Office installations are pirated), but one of the most common use of cracked executables is actually to be able to play the damned game. (I have three cracked EXEs on my Mafia II Steam library, one for the main game, one for a DLC, two for the other two DLC, because this is the only way the damn thing works.)
But when somebody sells you a game that works right out from the box without any hassles, codes, protection, rootkit-type DRMs… and, in GOG's case, a tested compatibility for Windows 6.x kernels and necessary updates and emulators, if needed… even the pirates shun on those who want to exploit these.
Comment has been collapsed.
I was going to link to a blog at Verto Studios, but it seems they removed it (and archive.org missed it). After its launch and prior to its Steam release, Driveby Gangster was released by a warez group. The blog post had said that only like half a dozen people bought it (was ~$5) and there were plenty of YouTube videos of people playing the game (which were of course almost all pirated). The author then made the game free/pwuy on itch.io and only asked that if people enjoyed the game to give it a thumbs up on Greenlight, basically trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Make no mistake, the warez scene at large has no ethical qualms with or rules against releasing DRM-free games.
Comment has been collapsed.
And before Big Fish Games switched to own client only as DRM, there were plenty of universal key generators for their products too. I'm just trying to say that I know that they even pirate the few-dollar totally casual games. But what I experienced so far that the amount of piracy in DRM-free versions is lower than in the cracked versions.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, I can see that, just to what extent I'm not sure. Witcher 3 is an almost ideal case study since it fits the AAA profile, but it's skewed by the big NVIDIA promo that gave out free GOG copies to lots of people. Probably a much more dramatic parallel is Mac/Linux versions of games, where people want to support the devs that support their platform.
Comment has been collapsed.
http://www.retrocityrampage.com/buy.php
FINE PRINT - FOR CLARIFICATION
*License includes a DRM-Free version of the game and a Steam or GOG Key, but it is a single user license. This is not two copies of the game, but rather a single user license which includes multiple versions. This does not grant you the right to distribute the other version to your friends. Keep DRM-Free software alive, please don't pirate.
Ok this helped me to view the things different. It is curious that there is not a single note of this kind in humblebundle's site, right?
Comment has been collapsed.
Because, in a way, this is a bit naïve and dumb. And very, very greedy.
Most normal people would be glad that their product can reach a wider audience that can give them a larger user base in the future, but it is similar to books now: publishers put a DRM on a digital copy so only one person can read it. They never consider the fact that public libraries exist and that people have been lending books to others since mass printing was invented.
This is why, in a sense, Steam is the second best store for games after GOG, because they are not stupid enough to deny the existence of a real thing, and allow family sharing. True, on one physical computer, but at least that is better than many publishers' policy of one key = one person only, even if they are I the same household.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think it's slightly shady but not that big a deal. Not going to start going around saying people shouldn't do it as it's none of my business.
I haven't done it. Was going to once when I bought Besieged from the Humble Store rather than from a bundle. It went on sale on Steam a few weeks later so I bought another copy for myself before I had the chance to play the DRM version.
Comment has been collapsed.
What do you think about this.
There was a telltale "make your own bundle" in humblebundle, which gave both telltale keys and steam keys. You could purchase the wolf among us, tales from the bl, and game of thrones plus some fillers for around $17.
The steam keys alone were around $38 in g2a. In the the hypothetical case someone might have done that, they would have profited around $15 after taxes and stuff and would, still, be able to play the games.
Or they could have sold the telltale keys for extra $12 profit.
Comment has been collapsed.
HB are weird. I got banned from their Steam group for trying to trade my spare bundle keys there. Seems stupid that they wouldn't want you trading bundle games. shrug
Comment has been collapsed.
If you were to go to a store (Gamestop or what have you), buy a copy of the game. Install it on your PC aswell as make a backup.
Then sell off/trade the game to a friend.
Ask yourself, is that legal?
Thats your answer... Because that is essentially what you're doing in trading or selling off the Steam key while holding on to the DRM-free copy.
However that just goes on legality and ethics.
There's essentially no way to enforce it in either case short off hard DRM.
Comment has been collapsed.
Right, you're "giving" - thats such a distinction.
From a legal standpoint its irrelevant, you're making a copy and handing off the licenced key. Keeping an unlicenced copy for yourself.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh, so you didn't misread, you chose to deliberately twist what I wrote. That's much better.
To others who read this, I haven't given away games and played the DRM-free copy. I brought it up for discussion, and am glad that many here presented well thought out and diverse opinions on the subject. I'm pretty sure that some people who had a one-sided opinions, but bothered to read through the whole thread, would agree that things are not as clear cut as they thought.
Comment has been collapsed.
sigh
I didn't say YOU personally did it.
I use the sentence "you did" or "you do" to avoid setting up convoluted sentences that set up hypothetical situations having to elaborate and explain that no I'm not talking about you personally but a hypothetical you that in a hypothetical realm of possibility may hypothetically decide to do such a thing.
I figured that was obvious since this was all a thought experiment.
As for why things aren't as clear cut? Its because people like to feign ignorance or be outright ignorant.
The idea that "If humble did not want this, they should not have provided DRM-free keys." for one.
While true, if they outright did not want it they should only have provided a single key, but they cater to an audiences that desires a DRM free option. That does not give you a free slip to hand off your DRM key in any manner. Whether it be selling, trading, giving away or anything else.
The idea is that if you want to gift, you use the gift option. This will provide the DRM key (usually steam) aswell as the DRM-free option when available gifted to that person.
The idea that you keep the DRM-free option for yourself while handing off the steam key is abusing that licence and effectively you are selling off (or keeping) illegal copies.
What many fail to realize is that "Sorry I did not know that." is not a defense in legal court.
Its something that works when you're trying to weasel your way out of punishment from your parents or at school.
Its something that doesn't really work when you've broken the law.
The main feature is that its such a minor thing and hard to track that they can't really do much about it.
That nothing is done about it and countless people got away with it does NOT make it legal however.
I'm just saying it as it is. Under the terms provided by Humble if you hand off the steam key (in whatever manner) while keeping the DRM-free option for yourself. You're exploiting the licence. And while it is true that they have provided the exploit window, that does not make it "legal" to do so.
Similarly, from a legal perspective there is no difference between giving a key, selling a key or trading a key - as far as the legality of that key is concerned. Though if it were to happen on large scale I'm sure that they'd look less favorably on selling off or trading the key than giving it to a friend, if only barely. Yet that is semantics since in all cases you're keeping an effectively illegal copy.
-
The whole issue here is quite similar to that of piracy and keeping hold of illegal copies. However people justify themselves by saying that they never made the copy and that Humble provided the option therefor "it must be okay right".
Hiding behind the defense of "Well if they didn't want me to have two copies they should've only given me one."
Their terms clearly state that the DRM-free key is for personal use only and that if you want to hand it off you should use the gift option which keeps the entire game out of your 'library' while adding it to the person you gift it to..
Thats hardly vague. The only reason that could be considered vague is if you didn't READ their terms but just assumed that getting provided two copies means you can do what you want with them.
Comment has been collapsed.
16,284 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by AdJ
1,797 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by MeguminShiro
23 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Bigshrimp
493 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by sallachim
205 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by carlica
381 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by OsManiaC
54 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by sensualshakti
187 Comments - Last post 1 minute ago by softbearcas
55 Comments - Last post 16 minutes ago by Axelflox
45 Comments - Last post 19 minutes ago by sallachim
42 Comments - Last post 41 minutes ago by Axelflox
4 Comments - Last post 49 minutes ago by RePlayBe
21 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Bum8ara5h
11 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by venturercatt
Some Humble Bundle games include both Steam keys and DRM-free copy. Now I'm pretty sure the intention is that only one copy at a time will be used, and by the same player. Still, do you think it's acceptable to give the Steam key and use the DRM-free copy, or is it abuse of the license? If the latter, does Humble actually expect people who gift the Steam key to be careful not to play the DRM-free copy unless they buy the game again?
L4+ giveaway to make you happy :-)
Comment has been collapsed.